2 Poems by
Peter Magliocco
< More Poetry
|
Living Through the Brood of Smoke
What family we had in Germany
remains a brood unknown
thanks to time's passage
& geographic distance
once trebled emotions rang
thru forests of dulcimer moments
in a bloom of violent givings
before the beer-drinker's gut
spent itself in vomit
a bar maid modeled like despair
all the melancholy of her place
as loutish comrades snorted
at promises the opaque realm
held for any sacrificial loser
retreating to a hash pipe's fire
we worshipped the pagan air
far from a breath of sanity
against the incense of papal altars
where the host will yet be taken
like a heirloom between the teeth
or a book vermin fleeing Hitler
into some living thought we burned
any money-makers yet stealing
the gypsy's flower in a snowfall night
The Winner from a T.V. Survivor's Show
I thought of Ho Chi Minh
and his wall-tacked picture
in the dorms of protesting students
believing we'd be statistics
all thru those Nam years
of poisoned punji sticks
& delta mines hidden
along the slow moving river
your company waded across
-- in full combat gear --
during the Tet
your girl back in California
wore some skimpy beach wear,
thanks for those pictures too
of that Saigon hostess
whose images we tacked
like cards to my locker door
later broken into when we left
for the Washington '68 riots
& my blue suede Elvis jacket
was burned by some intruder
plundering the empty barracks
we bequeathed to Fort Bragg
all that & distant echoes
of taps drowned out by Zeppelin
heavy metal you told me
rocked almost like mortar fires
in the night's great fireworks
you couldn't hear yourself sing
or curse the bitch leaving you
these memories we never got
to watch on the nightly news
|
